


There’s A Room Where The Light Won’t Find You

by NeopetsKid



Series: HLVRAI One-Shots [4]
Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Betrayal, Canon Compliant, Canon amputation, Dissociation, Gen, Graphic Description of Injuries, Hurt/No Comfort, Stream of Consciousness, They/Themrey, i don’t think it’s that bad but I’m tagging it just in case, uhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27521596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeopetsKid/pseuds/NeopetsKid
Summary: Benrey deals with the betrayal and its consequences like they always do: alone.
Relationships: Benrey & The Science Team (Half-Life)
Series: HLVRAI One-Shots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974760
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	There’s A Room Where The Light Won’t Find You

**Author's Note:**

> There needs to be more content of the teal to green healing powers, so I made it.

The cool desert air provided a breeze into the room, the door still open. Stars hung in the sky with all the certainty and resignation as the gods. Yet for all the light they provided, the sky couldn’t reach into the room.

The room was empty save for one figure. They stood in silence, staring at a spot on the ground with a blank expression. If one were to approach this person, they would not react to any kind and worried questions about them. Maybe they would lash out, unholstering the gun at their side and unload the clip. Maybe they would walk away in silence, still not tethered to their body. Or maybe they wouldn’t do anything at all.

No one approached this person, however. They simply stood there, alone in the dark, staring at a slowly drying puddle of blood with dimly glowing eyes.

The figure’s name was Benrey. Through all the haze currently filling their head, they remembered this. They remembered everything, an unusual occurrence, and as always, an unwelcome one. 

Benrey remembered first floating the idea around to Bubby. It was brilliant, they had thought confidently. Getting rid of the Science Team before they could reach Xen was paramount in achieving Xen’s goals. Benrey chose what they thought was the least violent way to do this.

They arranged the ambush with Forzen. He had scoffed at Benrey’s request to keep them alive, but agreed once Benrey promised he could “rough them up a little”. And they hadn’t cared about it. They encouraged it, in fact, when the ambush finally happened.

The lights had gone out, leaving the more humanoid members of their part in darkness. Benrey adjusted their vision to suit the light and observed.

Three boot boys came in at once. They immediately jumped Gordon, hitting every weak spot the HEV suit had. The sounds of blows landing and pained grunts sparked something in Benrey, something primal and fierce. They shouted mindlessly, cheering on the soldiers as they attacked, heart pounding in time to the sound of violence.

Their eyes caught something new, something shiny. A soldier whipped out a knife and brought it down. On something. On someone. On  _ Gordon _ .

Benrey’s cheers stopped as a horrible scream filled the air. The sickly scent of blood filled the room, filling their lungs and cutting off whatever they were going to say. The piercing shriek was stopped only by a punch to the face, and at last, Gordon fell silent.

His body fell limply on the ground, the HEV suit clanging horribly against the concrete. A ringing filled Benrey’s ears as they stood frozen in place. Not even the skeletons could have moved them from the room.

Dimly, Benrey was aware that the others had fled. Dr. Coomer had led them out without a goodbye. Not that they deserved one.

And so they stood long after the others had left. Long after the soldiers had dragged Gordon out of the room, complaining about how heavy the suit made him. Long after the stars finally fled the sky.

Only the closest star shook them from their spot. As the sun slowly rose to wake the earth, light spilled into the room, illuminating the figure within and the puddle they were staring at. Benrey’s eyes followed the light as it slowly reached the spot they had been staring at for hours.

It was so  _ red _ . Benrey knew that human blood was red, of course, had even tried to change their own blood to match. But their blood couldn’t compare. The scarlet stain was gleaming from the sunlight, the shine a mockery of the life it once belonged to. Now it was just an ugly mar on the ground, a reminder of the senseless violence that had occurred.

It was  _ wrong _ , they realized. This blood had belonged to Gordon, had been the life force in his veins: but Gordon wasn’t red. He wasn’t even orange. Gordon was  _ green _ , the color of nature that grew in forests Benrey had never seen. Green like life, so loud and caring. Green like his eyes, which darkened to deep woods when he was angry, and sparkled like emeralds when he laughed. 

And the red on the ground made a mockery of it all. 

Benrey’s eyes followed the trail as it led out the door. They finally moved, still in a daze, trancelike. The blood on the ground seemed to go on forever.  _ Humans shouldn’t bleed this much,  _ Benrey thought distantly.

They stumbled after the trail, boots kicking up the rusty dirt as they did. Finally, when they rounded a corner, they found him.

They had dropped him in a garbage compactor, the door slightly ajar. Benrey held their breath as they approached, as though afraid they could somehow rouse Gordon from his slumber.

He lay there listlessly, prone among the garbage. His glasses were cracked, blood running down his face and eye swollen. The HEV suit was covered in new scrapes and bends. Worst of all, however, was his arm.

The arm stopped short, just after the elbow. The metal around it was cut cleanly through; the soldiers must have used a chink in the armor. Gordon’s arm itself was a bloody mess, shards of white bone peeking out behind the scarlet viscera.

Benrey swallowed hard, forcing down the bile rising in their throat. They stepped forward slowly, still afraid to wake the other up. Gordon didn’t move.

Cautiously, they stepped next to him and knelt down. His stump was still bleeding sluggishly, coating the trash beneath him.  _ Humans shouldn’t bleed this much, _ Benrey thought again. Mindlessly, they picked up his arm and began to sing.

The song started out low pitched as Benrey struggled to think healing thoughts. The orbs that came out of their mouth were brown like silt. They swatted them away before they could touch Gordon and focused.

They concentrated hard on everything they knew that healed. White hot metal against open wounds, quickly reddening gauze held tight against a cut, a quick shot of anesthesia to reduce struggling. 

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, their song became higher pitched as real and green spilled from their mouth. They coated Gordon’s arm with the material, watching as the liquid quickly congealed and halted the bleeding. Hours from now, the sweet voice would evaporate, leaving behind the slightly healed stump. Then Gordon could regenerate his arm on his own without fear of bleeding out.

The last of the beam trickled out of Benrey’s mouth. They let out a shaky sigh. Gordon didn’t look better by any measure of the word, but at least the garbage beneath him was no longer being soaked in blood.

Speaking of which, it wasn’t good for Gordon to stay here, was it? He was in the crushing part of the machine. Gordon couldn’t heal if he was squished.

Benrey stood up again, grabbing Gordon under the armpits and heaving him out of the trash compactor. They strained under his weight, struggling to keep him fully upright. Once outside of the container they dropped him unceremoniously, panting in exertion.

The sun began to beat down on them as they caught their breath. Wiping sweat from their forehead, they looked down at Gordon.  _ Humans aren’t supposed to be out in the sun for too long either,  _ they realized. And they couldn’t just leave him out in the open where anyone could find him.

Benrey looked around for a place to put him. The corner had no shade and the doors nearby were locked. And the trash compactor…

The trash compactor had  _ two _ doors, Benrey realized. They opened the other one and found an empty part of the structure. No trash to infect Gordon’s sound and no heavy machinery to crush him.

It was perfect! Benrey bolted back to Gordon and dragged him into the other part of the compactor. They dropped him with a loud metallic  _ clank _ and stepped back.

Gordon still looked horrible. Something in Benrey’s stomach twisted as they looked at his pale, bloodied face. Even asleep he appeared to be in pain. Benrey’s eyes trailed down his body and landed on his arm again.

The scarlet captivated them once again. They stared, unblinking, at the wretched color that marred his body.  _ It shouldn’t have gone like this,  _ they concluded. _ Gordon isn’t red. _

A clattering behind them alerted Benrey of the skeleton’s presence. They reluctantly tore their eyes away from the other and turned around.

The skeleton stood just outside the trash compactor. It said nothing, simply tilted its head at them.  _ Stop wasting time, _ it seemed to say. Benrey couldn’t argue. They never had before, and they were too exhausted to try now.

Benrey nodded and followed the skeleton out, not daring to spare a look back at the man they had betrayed. The man they had inconvenienced and annoyed since they met.  _ It was easier this way, _ they reassured themself.  _ It makes this all less difficult. _

Yet it didn’t feel any easier, walking away from his beaten, unconscious body. Benrey knew this would happen, knew they would have to throw him off their trail so Xen could succeed, but it still hurt.

It hurt for all of them. As the sun climbed steadily into the scorching desert sky, it hurt for Bubby, locked away once more into a home he never loved. It hurt for Dr. Coomer, who lost the others and himself along the way. And Benrey knew Tommy was hurt too, betrayed by his oldest friend and alone in a familiar hell.

Gordon’s pain was the most physically realized of the group. Benrey knew firsthand what it was like to lose a limb, and didn’t envy the regeneration process Gordon had ahead of him. His bruised and battered body was physical proof of the damage Benrey had done to them all, a shining testament to their ill will. 

It didn’t hurt for Benrey at all. What claim did they have to that suffering? All they had endured was creating misery for others. They had no reason to be upset.

And so they weren’t. Following in the shallow footprints of the skeleton before them, Benrey didn’t feel a thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Brown like silt= feeling guilt  
> Teal to green= healing beam  
> Whoops! All angst! HLVRAI has consumed me and I have to make sad content of the funnie gmod series.  
> Kudos are great and comments are life!


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